IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cposxx/v30y2009i1p5-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A puzzle of ideas and policy: Gordon Brown as prime minister

Author

Listed:
  • Matt Beech

Abstract

This article argues that Gordon Brown as prime minister is a puzzle of ideas and policy. This observation is most notably supported by his failure to espouse an ideological narrative for his government. Brown the intellectually literate Labour leader has not constructed his idea of the ‘good society’. This in turn has had a negative impact upon the effectiveness of his leadership and the unity of his government. The article highlights the implications of this problem; discusses the nature of Brown's politics through analysing the works of Lee and Hickson; and asserts the virtues of crafting a coherent ideological narrative for government. The article concludes by surveying the prospects of a Brown-led Labour Party in the forthcoming political era – an era which is likely to be one dominated by the Conservative Party under the leadership of David Cameron.

Suggested Citation

  • Matt Beech, 2009. "A puzzle of ideas and policy: Gordon Brown as prime minister," Policy Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 5-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:5-16
    DOI: 10.1080/01442870802576124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442870802576124
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01442870802576124?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:30:y:2009:i:1:p:5-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cpos .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.